1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information-processing device configured to attain speech recognition to recognize data input by speech.
2. Description of the Related Art
Speech-recognition technologies have become commercially practical as technologies of achieving data input and/or device operations through speech input in place of key input and/or button operations. According to many speech-recognition technologies that are currently used, only predetermined words and/or phrases can be recognized, even though the number of words varies depending on the technology. Therefore, it is difficult for a user to know what kind of words and/or phrases can be accepted at the time when the user performs speech input. Accordingly, there have been proposed speech-recognition systems capable of presenting data on words and/or phrases that can be input by speech to the user to perform the speech input smoothly.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-181488 discloses a speech-recognition device presenting a specific input example such as “Input data such as Showa-machi, Kariya city, Aichi prefecture” at the time when address data is input by speech. Further, a speech-recognition device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-283797 is configured to present input-template data to the user, where the data is used to correct speech-input data on continuous numbers when the speech-input data is erroneously recognized. For example, the input-template data reads “2 for the 7th” to correct the speech-input data on the continuous numbers.
Of systems using a graphical user interface (GUI) and the speech input in combination, many systems construct the GUI to show the user what kind of data should be input. For example, a data-input device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-021920 displays template data which reads “from ——————to ——————” (where the part corresponding to “——————” denotes an input field) in a screen image used to input route data to inform the user that data on uttered words “from Tokyo to Osaka” can be input, for example.
According to the above-described data-input device, fixed expressions are displayed as text data and a part where two or more words should be shown is indicated by the input field. Therefore, it becomes possible to discriminate between a changeable part and a part where predetermined data should be input. Further, example word data that can be input to the input field is presented to the user through guidance using synthesized speech and/or a display through predetermined operations so that a user interface (UI) which specifically shows an acceptable input is achieved. Thus, since example data input by speech and the input-template data are displayed to the user, the user can utter words without hesitation.
According to the speech-recognition device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-181488, the example input data presented to the user is determined in advance. According to the example input data presented by the speech-recognition device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-283797, the user can easily understand which part of the example input data is changeable. However, the method of generating the above-described example input data is not disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-283797. According to the data-input device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-021920, the method of determining example data that can be input to the input field in advance, and the method of generating the example input data by extracting the word data corresponding to each of the input fields on the basis of the grammar data corresponding to each of the input fields are disclosed. However, the input-template data presented to the user, the input-template data reading “from ——————to ——————”, is fixed at the time when the UI is described.
According to any one of the above-described documents, when a phrase which can be input is changed, the grammar data used to perform the speech recognition, the example input data, and the configuration of the GUI should be changed.
For example, according to the speech-recognition device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-181488, example input data for setting should be changed in advance to input data on the address number at the time where data on the address is input.
Further, according to the speech-recognition device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-021920, the description of the GUI should be changed to change the phrase corresponding to route data input by speech into a phrase to which “station” is added, such as the phrase “from station to ——————station”.
Thus, according to known speech-recognition systems, since example input data and/or a UI presented to the user is determined in advance, the UI should be changed, to change phrase data which can be input by speech.